Technology and unemployment

Sandwichman, the go to guy on labor issues and author of the
series Chapman, Labor, and Unemployment at Econospeak suggests an
alternative to the myth of supremacy of capital, which is after
all an idea that reminds me of King Midas in our little child
version, but in the adult world has several versions some of
which include the daughter "life", but in the Illiad is described
as a son and a "reaper of men".

Technology doesn't destroy jobs. What technology does is make
possible and make necessary either increased consumption,
increased leisure or both. Unemployment results not from a
quantity of jobs deficit but from an adjustment deficit.
Unemployment results, that is to say, from a failure to establish
a new income, consumption and work time regime commensurate with
the new production potential offered by the technological
advance.

Furthermore, adjustment is no more "automatic" than is
technological change. Hello? Has anyone ever heard of "patents"?
Or of government financial subsidies to research and development.
On the contrary, adjustment should be considered an inherent part
of the reciprocal process of technological innovation. Why it is
not treated as such by so-called economists is a question
26,000,000 unemployed and underemployed Americans deserve an
answer to.